


flowers have grown in my chest (and, although they are beautiful, i cannot breathe)

by jeetie



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Major Illness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2019-11-08 02:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17972996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeetie/pseuds/jeetie
Summary: Lee Minho has been told that he's quite hopeful for a guy who has spent the last five months in a Hanahaki clinic. He figures it's bad enough to be a (sometimes) walking, (barely) breathing flower bouquet - what's the point in sulking over it? After all, he's getting better. His doctor thinks he'll be home for Christmas.Meeting Han Jisung was unexpected, and it certainly changes his plans.





	1. rosoideae (rose)

 

     Roses don’t survive well in salt. Lee Minho knows this because he’s been dragged to the beach twice a week to breathe in the salt air off the sea, ever since he got sick. His mother has been counting the weeks since he was hospitalised - it started off as counting each day, when they thought he’d recover quickly. After the days reached 100, she started counting weeks instead. Minho still counts the days: 173. He’s convinced his mother still checks off the days on the calendar, with neat little pen strokes after every visit; she comes to see him everyday and brings salty seaweed soup. He doesn’t even like seaweed soup that much, but he still eats every last drop because _roses don’t do well in salt, sweetheart,_ and she’ll cry if she thinks he isn’t getting better. He hates seeing his mother cry, so he eats the salty foods (even though he can feel his arteries hardening and what’s the point in killing the roses in his chest if he’s just going to have a heart-attack from so much salt?) and lets the nurses bring him to the beach (even though it’s November now and the beach isn’t warm anymore).

 

     It’s worth it when he finishes his weekly chest examination and the doctor gives him a hopeful smile with promises of going home from Christmas. He gets more smiles and more promises as time goes on, which makes him smile more too. He thinks about the future a lot: about whether or not he’ll rejoin his dance group, or if he’ll try to get into university or just start work. His mother reminds him that he has a lot of possibilities - after all, he’s been permanently excused from military service for being a walking flower bouquet, so he can make any commitment he wants. He could even go abroad if he wanted to.

 

     The doctor and his mother have a long conversation that he isn’t involved in, even though he’s just turned twenty and is old enough to make his own decisions. But then he’s told that he’s healthy enough to walk around on his own and he couldn’t care less about having a say in anything. He nearly cries with happiness when he takes his first step into the garden because _it’s been 173 days in the clinic,_ yet he’s never been in the garden without being confined to a wheelchair. He has to dry his eyes quickly when he realises he isn’t alone: there’s a boy sitting on a bench in front of a patch of lilies, holding a cup to his face and taking a deep breath every now and then.

 

     Minho feels brave for some reason as he sits down on the other side of the bench, moving slowly enough that he doesn’t jostle the thorn lodged in his sixth rib that will be removed in the surgery that’s scheduled for two days time. He doesn’t speak for a few seconds, instead looking at the boy from the corner of his eye. The boy is unfamiliar - Minho has never seen him in his 173 days - and small, with a narrow frame that looks like it belongs on a corpse. His cheeks hold a little life, their roundness making Minho guess that he’s around sixteen or seventeen? There are deep, dark shadows under the kid’s eyes, the same shadows Minho sees under his mother’s eyes when she’s had another sleepless night spent worrying about him.

 

     Minho has to speak, if only to stop his guilt-ridden thoughts of the worry he’s caused his mother the last 173 days. “Who are you here for?” he finds himself saying, and the boy just takes another deep inhalation from his cup, giving no indication that he heard the question. Minho is going to speak again, although he is unsure of what word-vomit is going to leave his lips, when the kid speaks.

 

     “My mother.” The boy’s voice is rough, and Minho wonders if maybe he has the cold. He shouldn’t be sitting outside if he does, but Minho knows sometimes visitors need to get out of the clinic sometimes. There have been many occasions when his mother has simply fled from his room when he’s hunched over a bowl, blood dripping from his lips and petals fluttering from his throat with every rough cough that tears from his chest-

 

     He has to speak again, unable to continue that thought process. “Your mom is sick? I’m sorry-”

 

     “No. She isn’t sick. She’s making me be here.” The boy cuts him off and takes another deep breath, pulling Minho’s attention to the mug. It appears to just contain hot water, judging by the clear liquid and the steam wafting over the rim, but there’s a scent behind it that Minho is familiar with, but can’t quite recognise.

 

     “I’m confused,” Minho says as he tries to make eye contact with the kid, but it’s hard when the boy won’t look his way. “Who are you here to see?” The kid still won’t speak, and Minho exhales as sharply as he can with his reduced lung capacity. He’s been polite and he’s clearly older than the boy, so it would only be good manners to give his questions a reasonable answer - or any type of answer. “Hey. Visitors aren’t supposed to be unsupervised, you need to-”

 

     He stops speaking when the kid moves one hand off his mug, and for a brief second Minho thinks the small boy is about to try and strike him. But instead, he holds his hand up and gives it a weak shake until his hoodie sleeve falls down enough to show his skinny wrist. There’s a thin strip of plastic wrapped around it with details written in neat Hangul - all Minho can make out is the word ‘Han’.

 

     Minho realises that the kid isn’t here to visit a relative - he _is_ the sick one, with flowers blooming in his chest - _Jesus, how old is he_ \- he looks far too young to be in a place like a clinic for Hanahaki patients…

 

     The boy takes another inhalation, and the familiar scent of salt washes over Minho along with another realisation: the kid is breathing in the steam of the salt water, the same way Minho had to, 96 days ago, when he was too weak to make it to the beach. “Roses don’t do well in salt,” he whispers to himself, and jumps when the boy’s head snaps towards him. Minho stands as quickly as he can and bows his head in apology, before he hurries back towards the door to escape inside the clinic once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think and if you think I'm wasting my time with writing this. I crave validation.


	2. prunus dulcis (almond blossom)

     Now that Minho has seen the kid - Han - once, he’s afraid to see him anywhere. Minho avoids the company of other patients for a few days (which wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence, considering he’d spent the last 173 days avoiding other patients) but, by the time there’s 175 tally marks on his page, he’s about to go crazy in his room. His mother can tell that something is different, the same way she can tell if anything about him has changed. For two visits, she doesn’t mention anything but during her third visit, Minho must sigh one too many times. He sighs and huffs and tuts as he thinks about Han, and his mother is ready to pull her hair out - and maybe his, as well. 

 

     “Lee Minho,” she eventually snaps, and he sees guilt flicker across her face when he jumps out of his thoughts. She sighs, wringing her hands, and Minho’s heart pangs. He’s clearly acting weird; the last time he acted weird was 183 days ago when he was trying to figure out how to tell her that his chest was home to a bridal bouquet. “Come on. Get your slippers on.”

 

     He makes an intelligent noise that sounds like, “Huh?” She looks at him disapprovingly and he clears his throat, trying to gather enough mental capacity to form a sentence. “Slippers? Why?”

 

     Judging by the way she narrows her eyes at him, she isn’t entirely pleased by the nature of this response either. “Because it’s cold, you dolt. Your hands and feet are like ice-blocks as it is. Put your slippers on so you don’t get sick and we’ll go to the common room.” 

 

     Minho knows better than to argue with her and instead just sighs for the twelfth time, as he swings his legs over the side of the bed to shuffle his feet into the fluffy slippers that his mother gifted him for his birthday last month. He doesn’t understand why he needs to wear slippers to keep his feet protected from the chill of the floor; he’s been confined to his wheelchair while he regains his strength in the wake of his most recent surgery (which, understandably, has left him utterly drained) so his feet won’t even be on the ground. For a second he hopes that being instructed to wear his slippers means he will be permitted to walk, but his mother pushes the chair over and he releases another huff of air. 

 

     He lowers himself onto the wheelchair, but collapses the final few inches. His mother makes a panicked sound like she is about to shout for the doctor, but all he can do is wave his hand dismissively. “Relax, mom, it’s okay. Please don’t call Doctor Kang, I’m fine.”

 

     She spends a few seconds in thoughtful silence, before the wheelchair starts to move as she takes his word for it. He stares straight ahead as he is pushed down the hallway, his jaw clenched tight against the ache in his pride. He hates the wheelchair for the sole reason that he feels weak when he has to use it, because it’s a constant reminder of his illness. Whenever he first became sick, he was still capable of doing things. Even when his pain was at its worst, he still forced himself to get out of bed every morning and feed his cats. Now, however, in the clinic, it’s far too easy to be ‘babied’. Here, he can stay in his room for days on end while the nurses bring him food and his mother brings him social interaction. 

 

    He sighs slightly. He misses his cats. He misses life in Gimpo. He  _ hates _ Seoul; it’s so noisy and crowded and his cats aren’t here and it’s not Gimpo — it’s not where he was born and grew up, where all his friends are, where his cats are. But there are only three clinics for Hanahaki patients in the entirety of South Korea, and Seoul was the closest. Whenever he complains about wanting to go back to Gimpo, his mother just reminds him that he’s lucky he didn’t have to go as far as Daejeon or Busan. As always, she’s right. 

 

    So he waits. It’s been a lot of waiting, the last 175 days. Waiting to be admitted, waiting to see a change, waiting to be told how much time he has left — then waiting to hear how long it is until he can go home, even though he never expected to be waiting for this kind of news. Now, on a smaller scale, he waits until they get to the common room, where he can push himself out of the wheelchair and melt bonelessly into one of the overstuffed couches that make the patients look smaller than they already are. Although he hates Seoul simply because it’s not Gimpo, there are  _ some _ things that he might miss whenever he goes home. He’ll miss the couches, which have protected him from the roses growing in his lungs. He’ll miss his biweekly trips to the beach. He won’t miss the transit; it usually takes almost three hours to drive to Jung-gu beach in Incheon from where they are located in Seoul, but he loves the feeling of stepping out of the car. It’s a feeling he thought could never be replicated. Stepping out of the warm interior of the car and into the chill autumn weather of the beach was something he thought was unique, but it’s very similar to the feeling he gets now, when he is wheeled into the common room and sees Han dissolving into the overstuffed couch. 

 

     He must stare at the kid for a moment too long because his mother latches onto his gaze and starts to direct his wheelchair towards this absolute stranger, who she must have assumed was a friend due to the way Minho’s gaze was immediately pulled to him. It’s too late for Minho to protest - they’re already in Han’s earshot so all Minho can do is hiss a choked, “Mom-” and his voice fails when Han’s gaze is pulled up to meet him at the sound of his voice. Minho watches as Han’s eyes flick down to look at the wheelchair, before he stares stonily ahead, carefully avoiding even looking in their direction. 

 

     Minho’s mother lost all sense of shame ten years ago in a divorce courtroom; and it’s clear she hasn’t gained any in the decade-long interim, as she gestures to the empty space beside Han and inquires, “May we?” 

 

     Minho wants to fall out of his wheelchair and melt into the floor.  _ God _ , why does his mother have to be so embarrassing? He’s twenty years old and she’s acting the same way as when they moved into their new house after his father left, and she befriended Hwang Hyunjin on Minho’s behalf. He wants to tell her to stop - wishes he had the strength to pull her away, because he’s going to be better in time for Christmas and there’s no point in her trying to make friends with someone for him. He’s already embarrassed himself enough in front of Han. He’s going to be leaving soon. He’s done alright this far with no friends in the clinic. 

 

     His mother is still hovering beside the couch. Han hasn’t acted like he even heard the question, as he’s been utterly motionless since he looked away from Minho.  _ Maybe he’s playing dead so we’ll leave him alone,  _ Minho thinks. Christ, he just wishes his mother would call it quits and wheel him back to his room, so he can hide there for the next month until he’s discharged. 

 

     Finally, Han says something, but Minho has no idea it is. His mother clearly doesn’t know either as she says in a politely confused voice, “Pardon?” 

 

     Han speaks again and it’s a  _ sentence _ this time (the longest one Minho has heard from the kid) but it’s definitely not a Korean one. Minho can only speak Korean, with a few phrases in English and Japanese, but the language Han is speaking isn’t one Minho can recognise. He is certain that his mother is about to give up and wheel him away, when one of the nurses hurries over. Minho recognises her: she’s one of the nice ones, who was extremely gentle when she helped him sit up when he was too weak to do it himself, around day 50 or 60. 

 

     “Jisung-ah!” the nurse speaks in a voice that’s almost scolding. Minho has never heard the nurse use any tone that wasn’t utterly professional - it sounds similar to his mother’s voice when he was younger and she caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Minho is half-focused on Han’s embarrassed expression as the nurse bends 90-degrees, apologising to his mother at a speed too fast for him to follow (and he suspects that it’s too fast for the woman on the receiving end too). But suddenly, Minho’s mother is being led away by the nurse.

 

     Minho blinks a few times, realising that he had zoned out. He looks at Han, who has his head bowed low with his chin to his chest, but not low enough to hide how red his round cheeks are. With a deep breath, Minho gathers all the strength he has and braces his hands on the armrests of the wheelchair, groaning as he attempts to push himself up. Han moves like a rocket, leaping to his feet and grabbing Minho’s upper arms as he hisses, “Hey, be careful.” 

 

     He might be prideful but he isn’t stupid, and he thanks Han when the younger boy assists him in sitting down. The exertion makes the kid cough into his hand, his chest shuddering with each barely-fulfilled breath, and Minho is about to yell for a nurse when Han shoots him a threatening look. Minho complies, only because he would want his wishes to be respected if he was in Han’s position, and instead he simply waits for the kid’s coughing fit to pass. It takes a few minutes and Han has to drink greedily from the water bottle at his side when it’s done, but it gives Minho time to think - so he isn’t complaining. 

 

     He figures the best way to start is to introduce himself, so he takes a deep fortifying breath before he speaks. Han looks at him and appears envious of the way he is able to take such a breath, and the older is struck with the reminder that not all people are as lucky to be at the same stage of recovery as him. “I’m Lee Minho,” he says quickly, before he can start to feel guilty about his lung capacity. 

 

     Han looks at him for a few slow seconds, before pushing himself to his feet. He is now looking straight ahead and, when he speaks, his tone is blunt and uncaring. “Good for you. I’m leaving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the encouragement after the first chapter!! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too!
> 
> NOTE: I've updated the tags. Please check them to ensure there's nothing that could upset/bother you.


	3. eremurus (foxtail lily)

     Han Jisung doesn’t  _ like  _ people. He doesn’t like being spoken to - especially by people older than him, who think they know better. He doesn’t like the way he’s expected to respond and answer any question they lay down in front of him. He wasn’t always so averse to people, which - he thinks - is the reason his mother is so adamant on forcing him to socialise. He used to be a social butterfly, thriving off conversations and hugs, but now he uses his basic grasp of Malay to pretend he’s foreign and doesn’t speak Korean. This trick usually works without him having to bat an eye, and it would have worked perfectly on the older guy and the woman with him, if his mother hadn’t gotten involved. As a nurse, his mother is supposed to pay equal attention to all patients; she’s excellent at her job, but she also has the motherly skill of hovering at just the right time to overhear exactly what he doesn’t want her to hear. 

 

     Honestly, it’s her fault he even had to resort to the old trick he’s used since they left Malaysia when he was fifteen. He would be hiding in his room all day if his mother hadn’t given him The Look. Jisung doesn’t think nurses get enough credit for how goddamn manipulative they can be, because all it takes to change his stance from  _ no, I’m not doing it  _ to  _ you know what, I will do it  _ is a well-timed Look from a nurse. The nurses probably get taught how to do it on a training course or something, because the Looks are all more or less identical, conveying the message: ‘Look at this poor boy and his awful illness. Isn’t it so sad? He’s so young. Too young to be strong, I guess we’ll have to pity him.’ So any time the nurses try to help him up or bring him a visitor, he puts his foot down, insisting he can do it himself. 

 

     The reality is, he can’t do it himself. He’s sick. He’s apparently dying - but most of the time, he just thinks that’s something his mother told the doctors to say to scare him into treatment. Other times, he thinks it’s true. It’s the times when he is coughing into the toilet for the third time that day and there seems to be a bit of flesh among all that blood, but the nurse has flushed the mess away before he can properly see past his tears. It’s the times like right now, when he gets to his feet to walk away from someone he doesn’t want to talk to and falls to the ground like a sack of bricks. 

 

     The older guy, who introduced himself as Lee Minho, moves faster than any patient Jisung has ever seen. Jisung wonders if the guy is even a patient anymore; maybe he just sticks around to rub his stupid functioning lungs in other people’s faces. Jisung regrets that thought as soon as he thinks it, but honestly, he’s a little busy stifling the cough that is bubbling in his throat to care about how Lee Minho would feel if he had an insight into his thoughts. Jisung breathes through the convulsions in his chest, not allowing his mind to think about the petals that are rising in his throat. He will  _ not  _ be sick in the common room, he absolutely refuses. Instead, he makes himself focus on the hand that is on his back. Minho is crouched beside him, rubbing along his spine in time with each held-back cough that makes his chest lurch, and Jisung knows right then that the older guy is  _ definitely _ a patient because no one can rub your back through a coughing fit just right unless they’ve experienced it themselves.

 

     Jisung feels disgusting when the attack finally passes several minutes later. He doesn’t need a mirror to know his face is pale and shiny with sweat, but he’s relieved when he swallows and tastes no blood. It’s humiliating, to almost have an attack in the middle of the common room when he was just about to walk away with his nose in the air from someone who was simply trying to be friends. He’s pretty certain that his mother is ashamed of him. As he thinks about his mother explaining his Malay trick to the woman Minho was with, his eyes burn with tears and he has to shut his eyes to stop himself from crying. He feels like a baby, with Minho rubbing his back soothingly, wanting to call for his mom but being too stubborn and prideful to let her see him this way. He knows it’s stupid; she practically lives in the clinic, so she’s seen him at his worst. Even when she’s not on shift, she’s sitting in his room with him. He always feels bad for her when he makes eye-contact with whispering nurses and immediately knows from their guilty expressions that they were talking about him. He doesn’t care what they have to say, but he knows his mother will. She can cope with a lot of things: his father’s stressful job, the fact that his brother is going to be a father to a child that’s the result of a drunken night, the fact that Jisung is ill. These are things she can take in her stride. What she can’t stand is people knowing her business and pitying her because of it. Jisung is like her, in that way. 

 

     He looks up, realising that Minho has spoken to him, and he croaks out the word, “What?” 

 

     “I asked if you wanted me to get your mom. That nurse is your mother, right?” Minho repeats himself, and Jisung just stares at him. His mouth is taking too long to catch up to his brain, which is formulating sentences that his mouth can’t spit out. Minho snaps his fingers in front of Jisung’s nose which, first of all, is  _ rude _ and Jisung has half a mind to tell him so. “Oi, Han. Focus here.”

 

     “How do you know-” Jisung starts to question, before his brain clicks. He taps his patient wristband, nodding to himself. “Of course. I showed you this the other day. Yes, that nurse is my mother. No, I don’t want her.” He immediately wants to take back his words, but his ego won’t allow him to plead for his mother like he wants to. 

 

     “Alright. In that case, I’ll help you up.” Minho shifts his position until his legs can provide the leverage he needs to push himself to his feet, and he hooks his hands under Jisung’s arms. Jisung feels a little like a ragdoll as he is pulled up and flopped onto the couch, but he likes it a lot better than the way the nurses treat him - like he is too fragile to be handled with anything more than a featherlight touch. 

 

     He sinks into the couch cushions again and, this time, when Minho gestures to the empty space beside him, Jisung nods. He waits until the older is more or less fully engulfed by the sofa, before he speaks. “I’m Jisung,” he states, and he’s about to leave it there but there’s something in the back of his mind, urging him to say something more. “I’m sorry for being rude.”

 

     Minho looks shocked at the introduction or the apology (or maybe both) but, to his credit, he hides it well after a brief second. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to meet you,” he says with a tiny smile. “Hey, what did you say before? To my mom, the whole… different language thing.”

 

     Jisung barks a laugh at Minho’s words. It’s rare for him to find someone who is worse at communication than Jisung is, but he feels a little guilty for laughing when Minho turns a little pink and looks down at his lap. “I said ‘what’ and then I asked for directions to the church. It was Malay; I picked up a few phrases when I lived in Malaysia a few years ago.”

 

     Minho positively cackles when Jisung comes clean about what he said. Jisung bristles at first, about to tell the older to shut up and go sit elsewhere if he thinks he can laugh at him, but he oddly finds himself giggling along with Minho. The infectious laughter is annoying, especially when Jisung was just planning to put on an emotionless face and end their conversation. “Oh, that’s cool! I grew up in Gimpo and I’ll move back there once I get discharged from here. Did you… move to Seoul to go to this clinic?”

 

     Surprisingly, the anger Jisung expected to feel never comes. He hesitates for a second, contemplating the benefits of telling Minho to get lost, but the nervous expression on the older’s face makes Jisung’s heart sink. How the hell is he supposed to cuss him out for asking intrusive questions when Minho is looking at him like  _ that _ ? “No. We moved to Malaysia when I was twelve for my dad’s job, and moved back to Seoul when I was fifteen because of his job too. He’s supposed to be getting another promotion, but… Well, things are a little complicated with me in here.” 

 

     His voice sounds tired to his own ears, and he wants the cushions to swallow him up - or, better yet, he wishes to be back in Malaysia before his broken heart and worries of the future. Thankfully, Minho senses his hatred for the current topic of conversation and whips out his phone with the promise of photos of his cats. When the mothers return forty minutes later, the boys have exchanged knowledge of favourite colours and favoured foods. Minho sits upright but Jisung’s head lolls on the older’s shoulder, the two sleeping deeply as the women exchange knowing looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a little bit of knowledge about the chapter names! Chapter one was Rose, simply because that is Minho and Jisung's flowers. Chapter two was Almond Blossom as it represents hope. And here is chapter three: Foxtail Lily because it means endurance. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for the continued support!


	4. plumeria (frangipani)

     A sleeping patient is not to be disturbed. Everyone in the clinic knows this so, when Minho wakes up the next morning, he’s still on the sofa in the common room. It must be early; the nurses are just coming in to start the first shift of the day, which begins at 5am, making Minho wonder when he last woke up as early as this. He decides it must be when he was still in high-school, often up before the sun so he could spend hours in the dance studio before his classes started. He groans at the knot in his back, starting to move in an attempt to relieve the annoying ache in his spine from the uncomfortable position of falling asleep while sitting upright. As he moves, a whining sound fills the air that sure as hell didn’t come from Minho, and he looks down in surprise at the mess of dyed blonde hair in his lap. 

 

      Minho never found it weird when he fell asleep cuddling his best friends Hyunjin or Seungmin, even after the two started going out with each other. He thinks maybe he should find it weird with Jisung, especially because they only met a few days ago and the younger boy acted like he hated Minho for a little while. But he finds it oddly comforting. He hasn’t enjoyed someone’s presence like this since Jeo—

 

     That thought is all it takes for his blood to run cold, and the happiness that was fluttering in his stomach turns sour. He had stopped moving to avoid waking Jisung, but now he lurches from the sofa with no regard for the blonde kid and almost floors himself when he trips over the foothold of his wheelchair. He stumbles but manages to stay upright, and desperately tells himself that the tears in his eyes are because he stubbed his toe and not because of memories of dance lessons, braces and dimples. The only reason he manages to bite back a sob is because Jisung is awake now, sitting up on the sofa and rubbing at his eyes as he says in a sleepy voice, “Minho hyung?” 

 

     Minho takes a steadying breath, slowly returning to the couch and curling up beside the younger boy again. “Sorry, Jisungie… I saw a huge-ass spider by your foot and I jumped up,” he teases, and happily allows himself to be distracted by the shriek Jisung emits. 

 

     When the older laughs, Jisung pouts up at him and rubs the drowsiness from his sleep-puffy face. “Not funny,” Jisung scowls, hugging his knees up under his chin, and Minho slings one arm around his shoulders to cuddle him apologetically. 

 

     And that’s how the next several days pass. The two boys meet in the common room like clockwork after lunch is finished each day, and the five hours until dinner are spent talking about anything that comes into their heads. Minho will take dinner to his room and eat with his mother, and Jisung will disappear into the nurses station to spend some time with his own mother; but after that, they’ll claim the overstuffed couch and sit so close together that one of the nurses jokes that she doesn’t know where one of them ends and the other begins. Sometimes they’ll read, or other times they’ll watch a movie on Minho’s phone – or they’ll just enjoy each other’s company until they fall asleep. They wake up in a tangle of limbs and sleepy clinginess; neither of them talk about the occasional nightmares that invade their nights together, but there’s always the unspoken offer of a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. 

 

     The shadows under Jisung’s eyes start to fade. When Minho asks about it, the younger boy shyly admits that he had trouble sleeping, but not being alone during the night helps. “I wonder if the nurses will let me spend the night to cuddle you after I get discharged,” Minho muses after being told this. Jisung goes oddly quiet and doesn’t answer. It’s the first time Minho mentions leaving the clinic – he doesn’t bring it up again. Another unspoken agreement: that’s one bridge to cross when they get to it. 

 

     Their routine changes one day, about a week after their friendship is established, when Jisung doesn’t come to the common room after lunch has been cleared away. Minho looks for him in the dining room, in the corridors, in the garden – he even checks the nurses station for Jisung’s mother, but neither Han is in sight. Forty minutes later, Minho is wondering if  _ maybe _ Jisung had been taken to the beach to help his flowers? His heart pangs at the thought of Jisung not mentioning such a momentous step in his recovery. The blonde kid still inhaled salt air from a hot mug twice a day and, if he had been taken to the ocean, maybe he was getting closer to being in remission of his roses? 

 

     As soon as the thought crosses his mind, Minho berates himself for feeling upset. Why  _ would  _ Jisung tell him? They never talk about their illnesses, preferring instead to just be normal – or as close to normal as they can manage.

 

     It’s nearing an hour after lunch when Minho eventually decides to venture into unknown territory. He’ll check Jisung’s room. Their rooms have been grouped into the same group as their illnesses, meaning they never really talk about them. Neither boy has set foot in the other’s room, but they had mentioned in passing that there was only one room between them. 

 

     As he stands facing the door, his elbow bent and arm raised, he hesitates and takes a few seconds before knocking. Would Jisung want to see him? Neither of them had explicitly said that their rooms are out of bounds, so there is no reason why Minho wouldn’t be wanted there, but he’s seriously starting to regret all the unspoken elements to their friendship. Maybe he had angered the younger boy without realising? Jisung had seemed fine when they parted ways on the sofa that morning, and the blonde usually wore his emotions on his sleeve so Minho could always immediately tell if he had overstepped a boundary. 

 

     But a lot could change from morning to afternoon. That same sentiment also applied to physical health, and the image of Jisung choking on petals by himself makes all hesitation flee Minho’s mind. He quickly knocks on the door, his knuckles bouncing off the wood in three sharp raps. The door is thin, making the knocks sound louder than he intended, but it also enables him to hear a few muffled sentences. 

 

     “Is that him? I swear to God, if you brought him here–” It’s Jisung’s voice, sounding more hostile than Minho ever thought possible. 

 

     The person who responds is a stranger to Minho, and sounds a little foreign. The edge to the stranger’s voice isn’t anything too extreme, but the fact that it’s directed at Jisung makes Minho bristle. “I’m not a complete asshole, I wouldn’t bring him without asking. Shut up a second and I’ll get the door…” 

 

     Minho leaps a pace backwards, trying to look inconspicuous and not like someone who practically had his ear pressed to the door to eavesdrop. The door is swung open to reveal a male around their age, similar in height to Minho, with hair bleached a lighter blonde than Jisung’s. Minho cranes his neck to look around the stranger, and his body tenses with worry when he sees Jisung perched on his bed, looking paler than he did that morning with his lips stained the familiar red that usually came from coughing so hard it drew blood. 

 

     “Minho hyung! Are you okay?” Jisung asks, and he pointedly ignores how his heart flips at the younger boy’s concern. Throwing manners to the wind, Minho shoves past the male who is still hovering in the doorway and walks into Jisung’s room. 

 

     “Sung, you scared me,” Minho sighs, but quickly backtracks when he hears the accusatory tone to his voice. “I couldn’t find you or your mom after lunch so I thought…” 

 

     Jisung smiled weakly, looking down. “I’m sorry… Minho hyung, this is Chan. He came to visit me but I think it’s time for him to go home.” 

 

     The stranger, Chan, makes a huffing sound and folds his arms over his chest in a gesture that probably isn’t intended to be intimidating, but Jisung still shrinks down slightly. “Jisung-ah. You need to talk to him. Don’t you realise how devastated he is?” 

 

     Minho watches as Jisung breaks. The kid gives a full-body tremble and his eyes shine with tears, before he clamps down and is instantly emotionless. “ _ He _ ’s devastated?” he questions,  voice challenging but also empty. “How the hell does he think I feel? Chan hyung, just go home. Don’t tell him you were here, don’t let him visit. If you want to c-come back, fine. But don’t say his name to me ag-again.” 

 

     Minho frowns when he notices Jisung struggling to speak, his chest hitching with held back coughs. Chan seems to realise that the conversation is doing more harm than good, and Minho can appreciate that he isn’t completely stupid. “You have my number,” Chan mumbles halfheartedly, and quits the room. 

 

     No sooner has the door shut behind him, Jisung is barking coughs into his hand, dark droplets of blood leaking from his lips and slipping through his fingertips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Exams and family stuff have been kicking my ass. Stream Miroh. 
> 
> Also, a note on the chapter title: frangipani symbolises protection.


	5. syringa vulgaris (lilac)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so LISTEN, potential warnings. this chapter is darker than the previous ones because it gives a deeper look into jisung's mind. there are thoughts of wanting to die, but it's explicitly stated that they no longer consider death as an "option". his emotions in this chapter could be interpreted as a panic attack. the chapter is a little more unstructured to try to show that his mind is more chaotic, but i'm worried the chapter just comes off as sloppy. please let me know what you think - sorry for the super long hiatus on this.

     Jisung hates himself for falling apart in front of Minho. It had initially been going  _ so _ well; for a week he was able to pretend to be a goddamn normal nineteen-year-old. He told Minho that he had it all figured out - as soon as he was well enough, he would leave the clinic, get a job, and work his ass off until he had enough money to take his mother on holiday. She always said that she wanted to go to America - specifically New York - and Jisung wanted to bring her there as a thank you for looking after him. He knew he wasn’t an easy patient; his father had said so before he got admitted to the clinic. 

 

_      Ungrateful little queer. Is it any wonder you’re sick? How could anyone return your feelings!  _ His father’s drunken words still spun around his head, bouncing off the inside of his skull and battering a migraine into his mind that he couldn’t escape.  _ Your mother spends so much time looking after you, it’s destroyed our relationship! Are you proud of yourself, Jisung?  _

 

     If his father had been talking shit in his intoxicated state, it would be easy for Jisung to push it away and forget about it. But he knows his father is right. Sure, he isn’t the only one his mother worries about, but he doesn’t make it any easier on her. She worries about his brother too, and she thinks his father overworks himself. He’s an asshole but he’s still her husband, so apparently that makes it okay when he gets drunk and insults them all until they feel like dirt.  _ He loves us _ , he remembers his mother repeating as she held Jisung tightly one night when his father came home from a bar,  _ he loves us so much, that’s why he snaps sometimes: because he cares too much _ . Sometimes Jisung thinks she’s trying to convince herself as well. 

 

     But as he sits hunched over on his bed, coughing and hacking into his hand as his life flows through his fingers, he realised that it doesn’t matter how much he pretended in front of Minho. All his claims about knowing what he wanted and how to get to it, Jisung now realises that they had been lies. Not malicious ones, but ones he believed as well at the time. He doesn’t know what he wants. To get better? So he can return to his life with his family? Is it ridiculous to hope that his father will love him again once his chest isn’t filled with flowers? The truth is, his father wants  _ the old Jisung _ back; the old Jisung with dreams of going to college and having a family. He doesn’t want this Jisung, who got outed in front of the entire school and tarnished their family’s precious reputation. This Jisung is alone and empty. His father doesn’t want that as a son. 

 

     So what’s the alternative? There isn’t another option, other than surviving. For a long time, Jisung had wanted to die. Who wouldn’t, in his situation? And sometimes it’s so  _ so _ hard to want to get better. He tells himself he has to stay alive for his parents, his brother, his unborn niece or nephew. But sometimes, everything hurts and he just wants it all to stop. 

 

     Everything seems to slow down when he feels Minho’s hands on his shoulders, bony fingers digging in to ground him. It takes him several seconds to focus on his friend’s voice, struggling to listen past the cotton-wool, panic-induced fog in his brain. Throat thick with blood and petals, Jisung meets Minho’s eyes to try to offer some reassurance.  _ He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s not going to die. _ Maybe it’s just the blurriness of his own vision, but he thinks he sees tears in Minho’s eyes. 

 

     “Talk to me, Hannie,” he whispers, voice wavering and fearful. They’ve never talked about it, but Jisung knows that Minho has lost someone. Too many nights interrupted by nightmares, half-spoken shouts of a name that Jisung never hears the rest of. “You want me to get your mom?” 

 

     Jisung has had attacks in front of Minho before; always minor - a laugh that turns into a brief coughing spell, or an indignant yell in the middle of a playful argument that leaves him breathless and choking. Every time, Minho offers to fetch his mother. Every time, he refuses. She has other patients, another son. He hates being the centre of attention, the first priority. He feels like he’s ruined her life. At times, he knows he has.    
  


     He feels Minho’s surprise rather than sees it, when he nods. The older pauses, not moving for a second, before his body jerks with a vicious nod. This attack isn’t the worst he’s ever had since being diagnosed, so he doesn’t know why it’s enough to make him ask for his mother. Maybe it’s the memories of the past that Chan had dragged through the door, but didn’t take with him again when the door slammed behind him. The memories still bounce around the room, flashing through Jisung’s mind with every weak cough that still splutters from his lips. The blood is soaking into his bedsheets now, and there are petals squeezed between his clenched fists, turned to mush between his bloodstained fingers. He can hear Seo Changbin’s laugh, the way he said Jisung’s name, feel how his lips once felt against his skin, his arm over his shoulders. Under the metallic twang of blood on his tongue, he can taste Changbin’s chapstick when they used to kiss, sneaking affection in empty corridors at school or under the guise of study dates at home. 

 

     He’s sobbing now, tears and snot mixing with blood. Where is Minho? Where did he go? He left to get Jisung’s mother, but when? Why is it taking so long? The room is too small; he can feel Changbin’s presence. How can he still feel so close to someone when they’ve never been further apart? He knows he’s sick because he loves Changbin more than life. He can’t let him go, his best friend, his first love. But if he doesn’t let go, he’ll be dead by Christmas. 

 

     Christmas. Minho will leave. Then he’ll truly be alone. The only reason he made friends with Minho was because the older inserted himself into Jisung’s life and wouldn’t take no for an answer. No one else would put in the effort to befriend a grumpy teenager who thinks it’s one against the world. His only friend will recover, and then Jisung will return to hopelessness. 

 

     The door opens. Changbin is gone. 

 

     Now it’s just his mother. Minho is hovering nervously behind her, but he waits at the threshold of the room as his mother hurries over to him and picks him up. He’s nineteen years old and he’s sobbing helplessly into her chest, leaving tears and remnants of blood on her nurse scrubs. The worst of his attack has passed, leaving only heavy tiredness deep in his bones. Energy sapped, he lets himself slump against his mother’s shoulder, soothed into some semblance of peace by the movement of her hand in his hair and her whispers against his ear, “You’re okay, Ji, mom’s here..” 

 

     “He didn’t know.” His voice is hoarse from coughing, throat ruined by petals and thorns. He can barely hear himself, but he knows his words were just audible enough when his mother’s hand stops moving on his back. “Changbin.” Saying his name out loud fucking  _ hurts, _ deep in his soul. Even when Chan visited, they had wordlessly agreed not to say his name; this is the first time Jisung has spoken his name since his diagnosis. “He didn’t know I’m sick.”

 

     He realises he’s crying again when his mother resumes soothing him, rocking backwards and forwards like he’s a baby, woken from sleep by a loud noise or a bad dream. She doesn’t say anything. He’s glad for that. He doesn’t think there’s anything that can be said that will change how he feels right now. The bed dips slightly under new weight, and his hand is enclosed in a bigger one. With some effort, he cracks his eyes open - Minho. 

 

     “We’re here.” 

 

     That’s all he needs. The knowledge that he’s here, with the two of them. It’s not a claim that he’ll get better, or a reassurance that things will get easier. It’s a promise, that he won’t be alone ever again. A promise that they won’t leave him. 

 

     He falls asleep, still in his mother’s embrace, his hand gripping Minho’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah, the reason jisung is sick. well, it's not a full reason, it's just the person who "made" him sick. i hope to give his full backstory in the upcoming chapters, as well as minho's. watch out for the "previous characters death" tag. the rose has a comeback in three days, stan them. 
> 
> notes on chapter name: lilac symbolises first love.


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